As with any learning intervention, gamification is not the answer to every learning situation and to gamify all content or learner experiences does not make sense. Gamification is especially effective when it is used to encourage learners to progress through content, motivate action, influence behavior and drive innovation. Gamification can also be done at the content level where the compliance online training module is turned into a “who-done-it” to find where the compliance violation took place. Content Guide 'Some ideas on when to use #Gamification. MORE >>

The military has been using “war games,” simulations and goal driven experiences to train personnel for centuries. It is important to approach the gamification of content and learning carefully and methodically. Content GuideThere are many misconceptions about the gamification of learning and instruction, here are some things that gamification is not. Trivialization of Learning —Gamification is not a cheapening or dilution of “real learning.” Do not think of games for learning in the same way as you think of games for children. All of these are elements of gamification. MORE >>

While a huge portion of our training budgets goes towards creating the content for learning, we seem to ignore that people learn only when they see a strong need. As I've mentioned earlier, context trumps content in the modern L&D world , and as L&D professionals we need to be able to create a work context that allows knowledge workers to learn when they experience a strong desire to do so. The purpose of training and development is to accelerate this process - and yet we don't pay adequate attention to 'workplace learning'. People learn by doing. MORE >>

For years, learning/training as revolved around the generation of ‘content’, in fact for a number of years learning was all about content and methods to deliver it to learners. The internet and the profusion of user-generated content has changed that, so much content, and so many methods to deliver it. It doesn’t take much of a stretch of imagination to put algorithms, user-generated content and the hundreds of millions of social connections that exist to use together to actually ‘create’ content. eLearning Algorithmically Generated Content MORE >>

Some stray thoughts, in no particular order, gathered over time, on the differences between education and training, from the lens of custom content creation for diverse companies across the world. Education (even vocational education) is far transfer; training is near transfer. Hence the obsession of training with application ( “I don’t care what they learn; I’m only interested in how they do their jobs better” ), with reducing time to competence (the Holy Grail of training), with rapid development (they need everybody to be more competent now ). MORE >>